뉴스레터

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The European Perception of Korean Geography and History Needs to Be Corrected

France is a great country with a long history and time-honored traditions, and has significance influences on the French-speaking world and Europe. While Koreans know relatively well about France, there are not many French people, and not many Europeans for that matter, who know well about Korea. When I was studying in France, what surprised me the most was the fact that there were few, if any, books on Korea in large libraries and bookstores whereas there were plenty of books on Japan and China. No wonder they have don't even know where Korea is. There are even some people who think that Korea had been a vassal state of China before it was occupied by Japan and then became a colony of the United States. While formulating a doctoral dissertation, I took this European perception of Korea into consideration. I wanted to write a thesis that would help Europeans learn facts about Korea and see it in a positive light. For this reason, I understood geography as a discipline to be a subject of nation and empire¹⁾, and approached the modern and contemporary history of Korea from a geographical point of view. The way Europeans saw it, the Korean peninsula was one of the most unstable regions in the world today in terms of geopolitics. Therefore, it was ironic and incomprehensible to Europeans that geography was not being taught properly in schools across Korea.

Apart from my doctoral thesis, I recently published a paper in the French journal Espaces et Societes (Space and Society)²⁾ in which, through a study that compared the histories of geography education in Korea and France³⁾, I attempted to introduce Europeans to the geographical traditions of Korea (Joseon) and the history and culture of Koreans. In particular, while presenting various main agents and historical factors that influenced school geography, I tried to cast imperialist Japan in a negative light and, at the same time, allude to Dokdo being Korea's inherent territory by showing the evidence that imperialist Japan had distorted geography in order to justify and glamorize their colonial policies and expansionism.

Comparison between Korea and France in Modern Geography Education: Introduction to Korea's Modern Geographic Research Findings and Criticism of Imperialist Japan's Distortion of Geography

In this paper published recently, I intended to describe how geography had been influenced by various main agents and external factors from before it began to be taught in modern school to present, and capture the circle of geographical knowledge on global scales and from global perspectives in this world that had been going global rapidly since modernization. Korea has surprisingly extensive traditional geographical thinking and geographic research findings. Unfortunately, however, Korea failed to bring these valuable assets to modern education because it was colonized by imperialist Japan. In this paper, I introduced the concept of Korean feng shui as the emotional and intellectual basis of Koreans that hadn't been known to the Western world before, and Saminpilji (士民必知), the first geography textbook written in Korea in the maelstrom of modernization to enlighten the people and teach them knowledge about the world, in an effort to compare modern geography education in Korea with its French counterpart on equal terms.

"The Map of Integrated Lands and Regions of Historical Countries and Capitals (混一疆理歷代國都之圖)" made in Korea (Joseon) in 1402, though it was a Sinocentric world map, had a world-class quality by the standards of the time as it included Europe and even Africa. Influenced by Islamic geography, this map is an example of geography knowledge about the Western world having reached all the way to Korea in East Asia. But little of the traditions of Islamic geography is known to us Koreans. Likewise, there are few, if any, people in Europe who have proper knowledge of Korean geography. There are also few materials available that shed light on the cultural identity of Koreans. Under the circumstances, this paper will be significant as a good material that teaches Westerners the history and cultural identity of Koreans.

When they lost the Franco-Prussian War (1870), recognizing the value of geography's roles and their influence on national education, France introduced geography as a discipline to modern education. Modern Korea began teaching geography as an important discipline, in order to shed Sinocentrism and teach knowledge about a larger world, and in the belief that geographic knowledge about land would lead to national education and patriotism education in times of national crisis. The background of introducing modern geography education is slightly different between Korea and France, but I think that comparing the cases of the two countries is thought has important academic significance.

In the middle part of this paper, while dealing with the evolution of school geography during the 20th century, I pointed out the negative aspects of what Japan had done by showing the evidence that imperialist Japan had distorted geography as a discipline in order to justify expansionism and militarism, and glamorize their colony policies during the occupation of Korea. And, while dealing with how the impact of the U.S. on Korea, inter-Korean relations, and Korea's relations with its neighboring countries had influenced school geography and been reflected in the curriculum, I naturally covered the textbook content on Dokdo which had been cast in a light favorable to Japan in the European world, in an effort to highlight the Korean name and image of Dokdo, and the fact that Dokdo is inherent Korean territory.

n this paper, I tried to clearly show through geography the swirling course of globalization taking place in the modern and contemporary history of Korea. In the process, I covered in detail the impact of Western nations on Korea in their academic relationship. Europeans are highly interested in North Korea as well as South Korea. In this paper, I set up the framework called 'Two Koreas, and the Interface of Geography Education' in which I illustrated the similarities and differences in geography education between North Korea and South Korea, and also explained that even though the two Koreas have different political systems, South Korean textbooks are describing the positive aspects of North Korea.

Expecting Common Use of the Name Dokdo in the French-Speaking World Favorable to Japan

The Map of Integrated Lands and Regions of
Historical Countries and Capitals(1402)

Dokdo was known to the western world as Rochers Liancourt because it was discovered in 1849 by the French whaler Liancourt. Since then, Dokdo had been commonly known as Rochers Liancourt to English-speaking as well as French-speaking countries, until 1984 when the noted French geographer Yves Lacoste, in his paper in the geopolitics magazine >Herodote published in France, marked Dokdo 'Takeshima' and explained that "this island is in dispute." Consequently, in France, the name 'Liancourt' was gone and replaced by 'Takeshima,' which has been in common use to this day. Traditionally, France has been favorable to Japan, and they are still adhering to policies biased toward Japan such as sticking to the single use of the Sea of Japan in world maps.

In France where geography and geographers have strong authority, the paper in a geography journal that explained how imperialist Japan had manipulated geography to their advantage during the occupation of Korea and indirectly emphasized that Dokdo is inherent Korean territory is expect to contribute greatly to defending the territorial sovereignty of Korea. As Japan is raising their voice over their claims to Dokdo, we need to be more meticulous and far-sighted than before in coping with this issue, in order to defend our sovereignty over Dokdo. Specifically, we need to publish many papers or articles in the Western academia that have the logical and academic power to convince the academia and media around the world as the basis of earning their understanding of, and support for, our position.

¹⁾ Une discipline entre nation et empires : histoire de la géographie scolaire en Corée, 1876-2012
²⁾ This journal belongs to the National Research Center (CNRS). and papers published in this journal are credible and highly cited.
³⁾ Géographie scolaires à l'épreuve du Monde, éléments d'approche comparée des cas sud-coréen et français